Some Iraqi candidates for Miss Iraq beauty contest pose in front of the Ishtar Gate at the ancient archaeological site of Babylon, outside the modern city of Hilla, south of the capital Baghdad on December 17, 2015. The beauty contest, which is the first one in more than 40 years, aims to boost tourism in the city and will take place on December 19, 2015. (Photo by Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP Photo)

Black-headed gulls sit on pickets at a riverside in Tokyo, Japan, December 27, 2015. (Photo by Toru Hanai/Reuters)

People wearing bear furs perform during a festival of New Year ritual dances attended by hundreds in Comanesti, northern Romania, Wednesday, December 30 2015. In pre-Christian rural traditions, dancers wearing colored costumes or animal furs, toured from house to house in villages singing and dancing to ward off evil, in the present the tradition has moved to Romania's cities too, where dancers travel to perform the ritual for money. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

In this Saturday, September 5, 2015, photo, three women in costumes look at sea life swimming above them during a private party held at the Georgia Aquarium as part of Dragon Con in Atlanta. The convention draws fans from around the country to take part in sci-fi and fantasy costume contests, a massive parade through downtown Atlanta and educational seminars about science and costume making. (Photo by Ron Harris/AP Photo)

Fresh produce and baskets of fish surround a woman at the Siti Khadijah market in Kota Bharu, Malaysia. (Photo by Duratul Ain D.)

Anand Varma, a U.S. photographer working for the National Geographic, won the First Prize in the Nature Category, Stories, of the 2015 World Press Photo contest with his series of pictures, which includes this one of spores of a fungus landing on an ant, penetrating its exoskeleton and entering its brain, compelling the host to leave its normal habitat on the forest floor and scale a nearby tree, in this picture taken January 22, 2014 and released by the World Press Photo on February 12, 2015. (Photo by Anand Varma/Reuters/National Geographic/World Press Photo)

A masked Burundian protester faces soldiers in front of a burning barricade during an anti-government demonstration against President Pierre Nkurunziza's bid for a third term in the capital Bujumbura, Burundi, 25 May 2015. Street protests continued on 25 May as the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the killing of the leader of the oppsition party Union for Peace and Development (UPD) Zedi Feruzi who opposed Nkurunziza's bid. (Photo by Dai Kurokawa/EPA)

Merit: A Night at Deadvlei. The night before returning to Windhoek, we spent several hours at Deadveli. The moon was bright enough to illuminate the sand dunes in the distance, but the skies were still dark enough to clearly see the milky way and magellanic clouds. Deadveli means “dead marsh. The camelthorn trees are believed to be about 900 years old, but have not decomposed because the environment is so dry. (Photo and caption by Beth McCarley/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)